Master at Arms Report 4

Relatively short report this week – primarily a series of reminders and things for the Brotherhood to think about and work on when dealing with the Master at Arms office. Things like transfers, competition hosting and grading, and promotion and medal recommendations.

In general, things have been pretty damn good – and I am very happy.

Additional bits of news:

I am running another puzzle competition. Click the puzzle!. It runs for about a week!

Recommendations and bolding

People love bolding, it’s kind of weird, its not necessarily – but it not a big deal over all. I have noticed an increase in people doing – but you serious do not need to do it. Look, I’m not going to get all heavy handy and start slapping down medal and promotion recommendations that are all bolded up to the nine here. That said, nobody should be under any illusions – you don’t need to highlight things in them, we can read them just fine with plain text.

Primary recommendations for promotions and awards should still tell the bulk of the story about a member’s accomplishments. Take a look at my previous report for my thoughts on the matter.

Transfers

24-hour clan to clan transfer holds have been the norm in the DB for a number of years, but this has never sat well with me. The intention of these holds was to investigate problems between members and their leaders, or possibly issues of shifty behavior going where a member transfers to a new clan for reasons of, to put it bluntly, a bribe. Hell, the Master at Arms Policies document flat out says that transfers are not a forum for an argument, and that remains true.

Clan to clan transfer holds are not, however, a place where clan summits can plead their case when a member wants to transfer because they’ve got friends or family. Members in this club (more or less) have a right to go wherever they please, subject to fictional limitations.

That said, the Master at Arms office will still be doing transfer holds when we feel (or, and this is where summits come in: somebody tells us) there’s something shifty or fishy going on with the transfer, but we will not be holding them when a transfer looks fine – such a transferring for friends or family, or because they want their character to take a new fictional direction.

To the leaders of the Brotherhood, if you notice something in a transfer request is fishy, please let us know.

Competitions and co-organizers

One of the biggest changes in the DB in the past few years has been the release and adoption of the possessions and credits systems. From an MAA perspective, this has lead to discussions where we need to more closely monitor co-organizers than we did in the past. The reason is simple: people earn credits when they host competitions, and it hardly seems appropriate to have an army of organizers not doing anything.

For example, does a flash game where the only grading one has to do is look at a series screenshots really need a second person to help, let alone a third? Probably not. There are always exceptions, and there are not going to be any hard and fast rules – all I ask is that people remember that there are credits (and genuine activity statistics) associated with running competitions, and they shouldn’t be taken lightly. If you think there’s a reason for a competition to have multiple organizers when it normally wouldn’t? Let us know and we’ll take a look see.

In short, expect competitions with multiple organizers to be looked at with more scrutiny in the future.

The second aspect of this, that has not yet been decided – there are situations where people in our club let the competitions they host go ungraded, and the slack has to be picked up by a clan summit member of a member of the DC. These things happen – but with credits and activity statistics tied to it – I’m of the opinion that those people that fail to close their competitions and then it’s picked up by another? Should probably not be given the recognition that comes with actually hosting a competition to completion.

What do you guys think about that? Let me know in the comments! Or if you’re not comfortable with the public forum, send me an email!

Competition grading two: Electric Boogaloo

This is just another gentle reminder to be please be careful with your competition closings. We’ve had another uptick in people needed their competitions fixed. This generates a lot of extra work for the Regent Staff, and it would be really great if you could be better at it.

People love bolding, it’s kind of weird, its not necessarily – but it not a big deal over all. I have noticed an increase in people doing – but you serious do not need to do it.*

Just since I saw this mentioned in a previous report, and mentioned again here, I know when I do bolding it isn't to make sure that the MAA can see the "important" stuff. I do it more for the member and other people looking at the recommendation after it is displayed on the dossier, to bring emphasis and focus to the specific content. Hell, if nothing else it makes it easier for me, as a leader, when I'm going through and making a survey of prior recommendations to see what has been approved at various levels in order to make better decisions with future recs on what level award should be recommended. Medal and promo recommendations are on the site in perpetuity, and I've always thought that they serve more function than just convincing whomever sits in the MAA's chair to approve them.